


If I Can't Love Her

by xspike4evax



Series: Beauty and The Beast [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xspike4evax/pseuds/xspike4evax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrolling with Willow forces Spike to evaluate his feelings. Second in the Beauty And The Beast series.</p><p>From stage version of Beauty and the Beast</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Can't Love Her

 

 

If I Can’t Love Her

Ironically the cemetery was as silent as the grave as Willow and Spike wandered along the path past the looming, crumbling crypts and the broken, jagged headstones.

Her heart beat steadily and her breathing was slow and even, a sign that she was comfortable in his company, that she wasn’t afraid of him. Spike had never really thought to see the day when he would be glad a human wasn’t afraid of him; he had after all spent his unlife instilling fear into anyone who heard his name and he had reveled in that power.

Now that power was gone, stripped mercilessly from him by mere human’s leaving him an empty shell of the vampire he had been; rather like her when dog boy had left, she had been an empty shell, all love and hope drained from her. She had bounced back just as he had, they were similar in a lot of ways.

It was a clear night, the moon high in the jeweled sky its faint, gentle light casting a soft glow to Willow’s face that was as pale and delicate as a lily.

_And in my twisted face_

Spike’s hand rose and he ran his fingers across his forehead which turned to ruffled ridges when the true face of his demon emerged; they were very different too.

She had hair as red as glowing coals in the hearth and a light pink blossom to her cheeks. It would be easy to say that the green of her eyes were like emeralds, but he preferred to say deep waters, she hid such a hoard of secrets in those eyes and Spike wished he had the ability to unlock each and every one of them.

Pretty as a flower in spring time was his girl, but she didn’t know it and probably wouldn’t believe it if he told her.

_There's not the slightest trace_

_Of anything that even hints of kindness_

Willow was all soft and warm and human; he was hard and cold and a demon. The things he had done in his long life were things Willow with her tender nature and soft heart could never comprehend for all her book smarts.

She was pleasant and kind and sweet, he was violent and cruel and sadistic. He inflicted pain and suffering on his victims just for the pleasure of it, Willow visited tenderness and sympathy on those in need because it was the right thing to do.

_And from my tortured shape_

_No comfort, no escape_

“It’s quiet tonight huh, Spike?” He loved the way she said his name, loved how it sounded on her tongue; not alien or foreign or thick with dislike but warm and friendly and infinitely pleasing.

“Yeah pet, it is. Might be done in record time tonight.”

“What will you do then? I mean with the rest of your night?”

“Kitten poker at Willie’s maybe.”

She looked confused. “Kitten poker? What’s kitten… oh.”

She stopped abruptly a sickened look crossing her face and Spike inwardly cursed at his own stupidity. Willow would definitely not approve of kitten poker; but, he was a demon, the lives of a few kittens meant little to him just as the lives of the humans he crossed paths with meant little to him. That was just the way of the demon and Spike was a demon through and through, there was no escaping from what he was and what he would always be.

Spike tried to look on the bright side, as a vampire he was stronger and faster than a human and he could therefore protect her from all the big nasty’s that roamed the night just looking to take a bite out of someone as delectable as his girl. It gave him little comfort though, she would always see him as a monster and not someone she could love and care about.

_I see, but deep within is utter blindness_

_Hopeless_

Love, it rushed through him as wild and uncontrollable as a flooding river and he was as incapable of stopping it as he would be of stopping a flood.

But Spike wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t naïve and he wasn’t selfish when it came to love. When he loved someone Spike loved them with all of him not just a part of him and he knew he had nothing to give her, that he had nothing to offer the girl who belonged in the sun when he could only go to her under cover of moonlight.

_As my dream dies_

_As the time flies_

_Love a lost illusion_

His fantasy was utterly hopeless and Spike knew it. He glanced at Willow out of the corner of his eye and his borrowed blood throbbed in his veins. She was beautiful his girl, like the first rays of dawn breaking over the horizon to kiss the sky. He had fallen for Willow and fallen hard and there was nothing he could do about it, he was…

_Helpless_

Love, it was like a fire, it burnt bright and fierce, the flames licking away at his heart, at his head, at his common sense, devouring them all one by one until all he could feel, all he could think about was Willow and her subtle beauty like perfect poetry.

_Unforgiven_

A light breeze whispered around them and Spike’s nostrils flared; all the better to catch her scent and let it drift over his senses. She was like lilies on the wind and ripe strawberry fields under the summer sun. Spike loved her scent; he knew it by heart and could find her so easily by scent alone. That delicious scent of hers had been ingrained in his memory since that night so long ago in an abandoned factory when he had cried brokenly on her shoulder and pressed his face into the crook of her neck, learning her scent for the first time.

In his mind’s eye Spike could see her clearly sitting on the edge of the bed in that pink fuzzy top with the lilac underneath. A frisson of suppressed desire worked its way through him at the memory, it was one of his favourite memories of Willow, she’d been so bitable that night and his fangs still itched and ached at the very thought of it. Spike felt he would never truly forgive himself for not biting her, turning her, keeping her.

He had threatened her that night, threatened to shove a broken bottle into her lovely face. He had threatened her that night in her dorm room too, threatened to bite her, to drain her, to kill her and bring her back to be just like him; something she hated and would have no desire to be. After all, she spent her life fighting against the forces of evil not looking to join their ranks. That would be the one unforgivable thing he could do to her.

Spike looked at her again naked longing in his eyes, but Willow didn’t see it, she wasn’t even looking at him, she was busy unbuttoning her jacket. As the jacket flapped to the side Spike sucked in a sharp unnecessary breath; the pink fuzzy jumper with the lilac underneath.

“I wouldn’t ‘ave done it.”

Willow stared at him blankly for a moment. “You wouldn’t have done what, Spike?”

“Cut you with the broken bottle.” Spike knew it wasn’t necessary for him to elaborate, he knew she’d understand; and she did, he could tell by the surprised look on her face.

“Oh,” Willow was nonplussed. “I…” she paused and smiled at him, a deep warm smile that made the muscles in his stomach tighten with pleasure that he was the recipient of it. “I’m glad.”

_Cold and driven_

_To this sad conclusion_

All he had done in his dealings with her was threaten her and try to kill her, how could he be anything to Willow other than what he was; a bloodthirsty, violent killer? Love hurt, it always did, at least for him. Spike thought of Cecily and Drusilla with a sharp pang. Oh there had been good times with Dru, many of them, but then he’d had something to give to Dru, he’d had something to offer her; darkness, death, blood, violence. They’d indulged together in the true viciousness of their beings and cut a bloody trail across the world at their own leisure. That was not the life Willow would want, and even if it was, Spike touched a hand to his temple; he wasn’t exactly in a position to offer it to her.

_No beauty could move me_

_No goodness improve me_

_No power on earth, if I can't love her_

Maybe once upon a time when he had been human he may have had something to offer her, but not now and Spike didn’t even have the words to try. William had been the poet and he could never find just the right words to express his many and complicated feelings. Spike knew that if he had failed as a human the demon had no chance in hell of delivering the right words at the right time to get what he wanted. He could only conclude, with a heavy heart, that he was meant to love her from afar. The world suddenly seemed a little darker than it had only a moment ago.

_No passion could reach me_

_No lesson could teach me_

_How I could have loved her and make her love me too_

Once he thought of William he discovered he couldn’t get rid of him; pathetic sniveling whelp. The passion in William and been Cecily and words. The passion in Spike was Willow and violence. William had spent his time coming up with word after word to express his love and passion for Cecily. Spike spent his time using maiming and torture to express his love for Dru.

Now he spent his time indulging in fantasies and daydreams of his passion for Willow and just how that would play out if he was ever lucky enough to get his hands on her. Spike didn’t do anything by halves and that included love and passion. He loved Willow with a passionate violence that had frightened him at first; Spike hadn’t thought it was possible to love any woman more ardently than Cecily and more violently that Drusilla. He hadn’t met Willow yet. He could love her and did love her in ways the wolf had never dreamed of. He could love her better than anyone. He could love her with such a fire that all other loves would seem like ice; if she would only let him; if he could only make her love him too. Even if it was just a shadow of the way he loved her Spike would take it and work with it until she mirrored his emotions in every way.

_If I can't love her, then who?_

Maybe in years to come, after a century or more he might have the answer to that question. Spike closed his eyes tightly, he didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to image a world without Willow in it.

“Spike?” Willow stopped suddenly and turned to face him.

“Yeah love?”

“You aren’t….?” Her fingers linked together nervously and a worried look crossed her face.

“Aren’t what?” he asked curiously.

“You aren’t thinking of trying to end it all again, are you?” She looked so concerned, so worried for him that Spike couldn’t have stopped the warmth spreading through his chest if he had even wanted to.

“No love,” he smiled at her. “Just thinkin’ is all. I do that you know, on occasion.”

Relief made her shoulders sag and Willow smiled. “Oh good. I wouldn’t like that.”

His eyes found hers and Spike pinned her in place without physical restraint. “Wouldn’t you?” It was a loaded question, even she felt it Spike could tell by the way she swallowed and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

“No,” she replied and tore her eyes away from his.

Spike tried not to read too much into it, after all, she hadn’t wanted him to stake himself before and not because she was desperately in love with him but because Willow was the type of person who didn’t like to think of anyone hurting or dying; even him.

_Long ago I should have seen_

_All the things I could have been_

If only he hadn’t been so drunk. If only he hadn’t been so blinded and obsessed with Drusilla maybe he would have seen what he’d had at his fingertips. They could have been happy together him and her, travelling the world, causing mayhem. He would have given her the world, given her anything she desired and he wouldn’t be in Sunnydale with a chip, in love with a human he now had no desire to turn. To sire Willow meant to lose her, she wouldn’t be the person she was now with the soul departed from her body.

Happy, Spike sighed softly, they would have been happy because he wouldn’t have known any different. He wouldn’t know what she really was the way he did now and the world would have been a good place with Willow beside him for eternity loving him as her sire and her beloved. Didn’t his life just revolve around if only’s. If only Cecily had loved him, if only he could have found the right words, if only Drusilla had loved him more than she did Angelus, if only Willow would look at him and see a man and not a monster.

William was much more Willow’s type of man but Spike didn’t know how to bring him back; and he would have, for her he would if he could work out how.

_Careless and unthinking,_

_I moved onward_

Blood, torture, death, destruction, screaming, begging, disaster, slaughter; becoming a vampire had given life a new meaning, it had given him a new identity and Spike, careless and unthinking had embraced it whole heartedly. He had moved on from William. How was he to know that centuries down the line he would come face to face with a woman who made his body burn like a brand from just being near him. How was he meant to know that he would eventually meet Willow and his new life would make him unworthy of her, to love her and to receive her love in return.

Everything he had done only widened the chasm between him and what he wanted.

_No pain could be deeper_

If there was something more painful than unrequited love Spike felt he would like to know what it was.

_No life could be cheaper_

_No point anymore, if I can't love her_

What was he meant to do with himself now? He couldn’t bite, couldn’t hunt, couldn’t be the vampire he was. He couldn’t write, couldn’t be good, couldn’t be the man he was. He couldn’t ignore, couldn’t leave, couldn’t stop loving her. His life had been a waste, he’d been nothing and now he was going to waste his unlife and he had ended up once again being nothing. How could he be anything without her?

_No spirit could win me_

Spike had tried reverting to his old way of dealing with painful problems, but crawling to the bottom of a whisky bottle had proved maddeningly unhelpful. He still felt the pain, still felt useless, still felt worthless and still felt unworthy of her.

_No hope left within me_

“Did Buffy tell you that we aren’t doing a patrol tomorrow?”

Spike dragged himself out of his depressing thoughts. “No. She never tells me anythin’ unless she wants somethin’,” he said crossly.

She made a sympathetic noise at the back of her throat. “You see, there’s a party, at Riley’s place and we’re all going.”

“Didn’t think college party’s were your thing, pet.”

“They aren’t,” Willow admitted. “But I promised Buffy I’d go and meet Riley’s friend.”

Spike’s heart plummeted. Of course she wasn’t going to stay on the shelf forever, of course there was going to be someone in her life at some point; but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Spike?” she whispered fearfully. “Why are you growling?”

_Hope I could have loved her and that she'd set me free_

_But it's not to be_

Spike cleared his throat but didn’t reply. What was he meant to say; he was growling because he was jealous, because it was devastating to think of her with another man, because that last shining thread of hope had just dissolved into nothingness. It was better to say nothing at all seeming as he couldn’t say the one thing that he longed to.

If I can't love her

Let thou world be done with me.


End file.
